Canyon’s Pressure Points Begin With Joe Zacharia

For practical purposes, Canyon High football Coach Harry Welch must tone down Joe Zacharia in practice.

“We almost have to tie his hands behind his back,” Welch said of his senior nose guard. “He can only take two steps or else we’d never get a look at the rest of the defense.”

When Canyon’s offense attempts to run plays against the defense, “we can’t go 100% because he honestly would disrupt the whole practice,” Welch added.

Unfortunately, for Canyon’s opponents, Zacharia isn’t held back on Friday nights. Instead, he unleashes a fury that has left his own coach and opposing coaches in awe.

“He’s as dominating a player as I’ve ever coached in my time at Canyon,” Welch said.

“He is one of the best high school players I have seen in a long, long time,” La Canada Coach Steve Silberman said.

And from Hart Coach Rick Scott: “Just having him on your team makes a team change its offensive philosophy and gives a coach gray hairs.”

At 6-0 and 206 pounds, the 17-year-old Zacharia does not possess dominating size. Just dominating skills.

“There are not a lot of high school kids who can dominate a game,” Silberman said. “But I saw him do it against Hart on film and against us on the field.”

What Zacharia lacks in size he makes up in speed. Welch said he is as fast off the ball as anyone on the team.

“He is also extremely intense and aggressive,” Welch said. “His first three steps are very, very quick. And his hand strength is phenomenal.”

Zacharia was Canyon’s nose guard last season, when the Cowboys went 14-0 and won their second straight Southern Section Northwestern Conference championship.

He earned first-team All-Southern Section honors, anchoring a defense that allowed an average of 6.5 points a game.

Zacharia was at his best in the playoffs. In the semifinals and final, he “was truly the difference,” according to Welch.

And he has continued to sparkle in the first two games this season.

“He’s playing the best football he’s ever played,” Welch said.

Despite double- and sometimes triple-teaming by opponents, Zacharia has five sacks in two games. His presence in the other team’s backfield nearly has become habit.

“You’re so aware of him,” said Scott, whose Indians lost, 6-3, to the Cowboys. “He altered some of our play-calling. . . .Take him out of the ballgame and we might have doubled our offensive output.”

Zacharia did come out of the Hart game at one point with leg cramps. “The doctor said it was because I didn’t have enough potassium,” Zacharia said. “But it’s fine now. I’m taking potassium pills and eating a lot of bananas.”

And he’s continuing to peel off linemen as he heads toward the quarterback.

“I like to hit the quarterback,” Zacharia said, smiling. “Hard.”

He had three sacks against Hart and two against La Canada in a 35-9 Cowboy win. That victory extended Canyon’s winning streak to 26 games.

The streak is a measure of pride to Zacharia, as well as a source of motivation.

“It’s not this team’s streak, it’s the teams’ before us,” he said, “but we’re going to keep it alive for as long as we can.”

If Canyon’s offensive line continues to improve, the streak could go on for quite a while. Canyon’s defense, spearheaded by Zacharia and returning All-Southern Section linebacker Randy Austin, has allowed one touchdown in two games.

“As far as I’m concerned,” Zacharia said, “the middle linebackers, Randy (Austin) and Cary (Caulfield), are making the plays just as much as I am. I’m just clogging up the middle, that’s all.”

Zacharia has made it nearly impossible to run up the middle against Canyon. In two games, the Cowboys have allowed 108 yards rushing. Last season, opponents averaged 2.7 yards a carry.

“When they’re running outside,” Zacharia said, “it makes me feel like they respect me.”

It’s the same feeling when Zacharia is double- and triple-teamed.

“It’s like they’re saying, ‘Hey, I can’t get you. I need some help.’ That’s a compliment.”

Going into last Friday’s game, La Canada’s Silberman wanted to try his normal blocking schemes to hold off Zacharia. “It turned out,” Silberman said, “that we couldn’t.”

The Spartans had to double-team Zacharia, which left holes open for the rest of the Canyon defenders.

Zacharia’s intensity on the field may be unrivaled on the Canyon team. Said Welch: “Right now, playing at the intensity he is, there is no one player who can block him.”

During a practice last season, Zacharia nicknamed the defense Psycho D.

“We have a bunch of crazy people on defense here,” he said. “I’d say I’m one of the Psycho D members.”

Despite his success at nose guard, Zacharia’s future might be at linebacker, where he played as a freshman.

Welch likes Zacharia’s chances of reaching the major-college level.

“It depends on a university or college that is smart enough to realize that height isn’t the sole determining factor,” Welch said.

Said Hart’s Scott: “Probably, because of his lack of size in relation to Division I linemen, he’s underrated. If you gave me a choice between Zacharia and (Brent) Parkinson, I’d take Zacharia because he can dominate a game.”

The 6-6, 235-pound Parkinson, a freshman at USC, was an All-American offensive lineman for the Cowboys last season.

“You put Zacharia in Parkinson’s body,” Scott said, “we’re talking about a pro.”

Zacharia has received feelers from several schools, namely Arizona, Colorado and Fresno State. He is confident he will receive a scholarship from some school after the season.

“I’ve really just begun to know how much I can do, how good I can be,” he said. “If I play as well as I want to, the (universities) are going to have to look at me.”

For now, Zacharia has set his goals at becoming the best nose guard in the Southern Section.

And he wouldn’t mind making it through the season with his knees intact. Some teams, he said, have sent players aiming at his knees.

“I don’t talk back,” he said. “I just let their ball carriers and quarterbacks feel it.”